Monitoring progress towards gender equitable development

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Monitoring progress towards gender equitable
development

• Francesca Perucci
• Statistics Division, DESA
• United Nations, New York

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Outline

• Can we monitor development in all its
  gender-based dimensions?
• An attempt to go beyond MDG Indicators
• Conclusions and way forward

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How far have we gone?

• The call for improved availability of data on
  women and men started with the first World
  Womens Conference in 1975.
• The first comprehensive compilation of data on
  women and men presented at the Worlds Women
  Conference in Nairobi in 1985.
• 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, a detailed
  plan for the production and use of gender
  statistics is adopted.

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How far have we gone?

• Almost 34 years from the first call for
  statistics on women and men, can we fulfill the
  current monitoring requirements? Can we monitor
  progress towards gender equality and womens
  empowerment? Can we monitor gender equitable
  progress towards all development goals, including
  the MDGs?

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How do we monitor progress towards the
development goals?
Embodies the goals of the last decades
Millennium Declaration in 2000

Eight universally-agreed development Goals (MDGs)

• Development is not exclusively economic, but also
  embraces human, social and environmental
  dimensions

Specific measurable and time-bound targets
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Gender equality as a necessary condition for
development

• There is universal recognition that gender
  equality and womens empowerment are necessary
  conditions to achieve development
• Women contribute to household income
• Gender equality and womens empowerment are
  necessary to achieve universal primary education,
  lower under-five mortality, improved maternal
  health, and lower likelihood of contracting
  HIV/AIDS
• Womens greater control over household resource
  allocation improve childrens health, nutrition
  and education

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Need to monitor gender equality and womens
empowerment
Governments need to honor existing international
commitments to mainstream gender and promote the
empowerment of women into all development policies
Data should be available to support this effort
and to identify the progress that is being
achieved
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Monitoring Goal 3 - Promote gender equality and
empower women
Indicators Ratio of girls to boys in primary,
secondary and tertiary education Share of women
in wage employment in the non-agricultural
sector Proportion of seats held by women in
national parliament

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Are MDG Indicators adequate to monitor gender
based aspects of development?

• Only some of the dimensions of gender equality
  and empowerment are captured by the three
  indicators in Goal 3
• The three indicators only partially address the
  dimensions they are expected to monitor.
• There are problems of data availability and data
  quality.
• Although other aspects of womens lives are
  covered by some of the other goals, few of the
  indicators under those goals are appropriate or
  sufficient to fully assess the situation of women
  and men.

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Goal 3 Modification of existing indicators
Share of women in wage employment in the
non-agricultural sector
Share of women in employment by type 1. Share
of women in total employment 2. Share of women
in agricultural employment 3. Share of women in
non-agricultural wage employment (current MDG
indicator) 3.1 Informal wage employment 4.
Share of women in non-agricultural
self- employment 4.1 informal self-employment
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Goal 3 Proposed new indicators
Proportion of women who ever had a partner, 15-49
years old, who have ever experienced physical
violence by an intimate partner
Domestic violence
Hours per day (or year) women and men spend
fetching water and collecting fuel
Infrastructure and womens contribution to the
economy
Land ownership by sex Housing title,
disaggregated by male, female or jointly held

Control of resources
Percentage of women elected to local government
bodies
Participation in local governments
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Monitoring Goal 3 Recommendations by the
sub-group

• For most of the indicators proposed the current
  data availability was still insufficient to
  produce the indicator for all regions and for two
  points in time (for trend analysis).
• The focus should be on promoting adequate data
  collection programmes.

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Monitoring Goal 3 Recommendations by the
sub-group
Womens empowerment in the are of health and
their ability to control their reproductive life

• Adolescent birth rate
• Unmet need for family planning

New indicators included in the new MDG framework,
under Goal 5, presented to the General Assembly,
September 2007
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And even on existing indicators, there are
problems with data availability MDG-indicator
11 Share of women in wage employment in the
non-agricultural sector countries with at
least 2 data points since 1990
67
83
73
67
73
20
24
74
Source www.mdgs.un.org,
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Can we monitor development in all its
gender-based dimensions?

• Available data are insufficient The data
  available from official national and
  international sources still do not allow us to
  monitor the basic aspects of development related
  to gender and to inform policies with the
  necessary statistics.
• Existing indicators are not adequate to reflect
  gender based dimensions Statistics and
  indicators currently produced and used for
  monitoring indicate that statistical systems
  (nationally and internationally) have failed to
  fully integrate a gender perspective in all areas
  of statistical production and to provide policy
  makers with the kind of data required for
  gender-sensitive policy formulation and monitoring

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Outline

• Can we monitor development in all its
  gender-based dimensions?
• An attempt to go beyond MDG Indicators
• Conclusions and way forward

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Most of the burden of collecting drinking water
falls on women and girls
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Reducing gender inequality is key to addressing
womens vulnerability to HIV/AIDS
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Health care must be made available to all
pregnant women and at all deliveries
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Women's significant contribution to ensuring food
security often goes unpaid
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Outline

• Can we monitor development in all its
  gender-based dimensions?
• An attempt to go beyond MDG Indicators
• Conclusions and way forward

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The MDG effect

• The political importance of the Millennium
  Declaration and of monitoring progress towards
  the MDGs have contributed to
• Bringing about an increased recognition of the
  importance of statistics for policy-making and
  monitoring
• Highlighting the overall lack of adequate
  statistical capacity in many developing countries
• A higher recognition and awareness of the urgent
  need to build stronger national statistical
  systems
• The development of new capacity building
  initiatives

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Monitoring and the need for statistics

• The political importance of the MDGs and the need
  to monitor progress have shaped the development
  of indicators and related statistical
  capacity-building programmes over the past few
  years.

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But are we seizing the opportunity?

• The MDGs and the new monitoring requirements have
  not only created the need but also provided an
  opportunity to improve data and gender-based
  data.
• The opportunity should not be lost to ensure that
  the need for improved gender data is addressed
• Statisticians concerned with the development of
  gender statistics need to become fully involved
  in the implementation of these initiatives and
  programmes.

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The way forward A new environment

• The urgency for development partners to address
  the lack of data has become more evident
• Important new initiatives for statistical
  capacity-building
• Marrakech Action Plan for the improvement of
  development statistics
• Steering and Working Groups on MDG Africa
  Thematic Group on Statistical Systems
• IAEG on MDG Indicators initiatives in
  statistical capacity building
• 2006 ECOSOC resolution and recommendations by the
  UN Statistical Commission

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Two important steps

• Ensure that capacity building programmes and
  initiatives to improve the financing for the
  development of statistics also include a gender
  perspective
• Develop standards and guidelines through the
  formal intergovernmental process (UN SC) to
  ensure full involvement and commitment by
  national statistical systems

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• THANK YOU
• Visit mdgs.un.org